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Concertgoers packed a cheery Pioneer Courthouse Square on Saturday night to see an interesting and not altogether fitting pairing: Foxwarren opening for Waxahatchee at the PDX Live summer concert series. Foxwarren, the Canadian alternative indie quintet fronted by doe-voiced singer-songwriter Andy Shauf, tiptoes between folk, rock and, recently, even hip-hop. Alongside blockbuster country twee group Waxahatchee, with their Lucinda Williams influence and an almost poppy sweetness, the two groups attract overlapping but differing listeners, but each scratch a different itch.
Though they were the openers, it was Foxwarren I’d come to see. Their third album, 2, came out in May as a departure from the band’s 2018 self-titled sophomore album. 2 offers more of a rock-’n’-roll edge peppered with ’50s sound bites, film score clips, and fragmented samples layered to create something quite interesting. The album translated seamlessly to the stage, where the band mostly stuck to the new stuff, along with a couple of Foxwarren tracks. And while I heard a lot of buzz in the crowd about how good they were, how much people loved Shauf’s 2023 solo album, Norm, they couldn’t seem to shut the hell up during the show. Stick to streaming or a bar’s jukebox if you don’t have the attention span to focus on live music. Same goes for shouting song requests. Nobody, least of all Shauf, wants to hear you interrupt a set to play tracks off his solo albums. Different band, bro.
Luckily, Waxahatchee’s set was loud enough to blast away any chatter. Katie Crutchfield and her Waxahatchee crew came out to a recording of Dolly Parton’s “Here I Am,” a triumphant and bold song to set the stage for what would be an audience-pleasing show. The six-piece band quickly launched into a crowd favorite, “3 Sisters,” off last year’s Grammy-nominated album Tigers Blood. Crutchfield’s ability to capture the audience was impressive, and I couldn’t help but smile when halfway into the set she said, “Alright. It’s ‘Crowbar’ time,” and everyone screamed for the apparent crowd favorite.
As this brand of country tends to do, the songs started blending into one, but they were pleasant. It was nice to be part of an enraptured audience, and it was fun to hear everyone’s whoops and cheers any time Crutchfield mentioned Tigers Blood with a rough strum of her guitar.
